[Amadou]

Here's my personal anecdote:

When I was working as a consultant I literally doubled my rates in the space of two years by simply not caring if I lost any gigs because of it and that was staring with a hourly rate of 3 figures.

At the time I was following the advice I had picked up from other consultants - never leave money on the table. I had enough money in the bank to retire indefinitely, but instead of simply walking away my aim was take as big a cut of the pile as I could get it.

Five years later I was sick as hell of the work, so I did walk away but the opportunities in that niche were rapidly fading by that point. There was probably less than a year's worth of work left anyway.